Various types of shell-intact seeds form a large part of the diet of many different kinds of birds. It is well known that seed eating birds are remarkably adept at shelling seeds, dropping the shell over the sides of the beak, and then eating the edible interior. Often the edible portion is swallowed whole after shelling. Many seeds which might be thought of as shell-free in fact constitute an edible core surrounded by a thin shell. Even very small seeds of this type (millet, for example) are usually "shelled" by the beak of the bird before the bird eats the edible core.
Birds which shell seeds before eating them usually, if not always, eat other particulate foods this same way. For example, Indian Ringnecks--for which seeds are a large part of the diet in the wild--consume manufactured feed pellets by cracking and discarding the outside portion of the pellet and consuming the interior. This method of eating feed pellets leaves "fines" (small particles of feed) which this type as well as many other types of bird will not eat unless starved into doing so.
Wastage of food when birds eat non-seed foods is by no means the greatest problem associated with birds which exhibit this "seed shelling" type of feeding behavior. For example, vitamin supplements and other medicaments are often available only in the form of liquids or powders to be added to the drinking water or to be sprinkled over other feed forms including seeds. Neither approach assures that the bird will ingest the intended dose. Drinking water consumption is difficult to predict, and any medicament sprinkled onto or even coated over a food particle is likely to be discarded by the seed shelling feeding behavior. An example of a bird feed which is coated with a vitamin mix is "Blair's SUPER PREEN Seedlets," a millet seed product in which each individual seed is coated with a mix of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, electrolytes, and other nutrients, as produced and marketed by RHB Laboratories, Inc., Santa Anna, Calif. 92706. Presumably, the nutrient mix is applied by standard coating techniques in amounts in excess of dosing requirements, since those in the industry are well aware that birds which eat millet eat only the core of the millet.
Even the exotic seed-eating birds, which otherwise have a great learning capacity, seem unable to distinguish particulate foods from seeds for the purpose of establishing a differential eating behavior. Some birds which eat fruits and vegetables, by taking them apart piece by piece and eating with minimal waste, treat individual food particles as if they were seeds and "shell" them (whether there is a shell present or not) before swallowing.
In view of the foregoing, a need persists for a manufactured bird feed which is particularly adapted to the inalterable shelling behavior of birds. Such a product would have similar applications for feed products for animals other than birds including reptiles, crustaceans and mammals. Such a product would be readily adapted for use as a snack food for humans and other primates.